Resilient packaging spacer



April 1967 E. J. KNAPP ETAL 3,314,534

RESILIENT PACKAGING SPACER Filed June 4, 1964 Fl (5. l FIG. 2

INVENTORS EUGENE J. KNAPP BY JOSEPH M. PEZELY,JR.

A TTORNEYS United States Patent 3,314,584 RESILIENT PACKAGING SPACER Eugene J. Knapp, Corning, and Joseph M. Pezely, .lr.,

Elmira, N.Y., assignors to Corning Glass Works, Corning, N.Y., a corporation of New York Filed June 4, 1964, Ser. No. 372,501 7 Claims. (Cl. 229-14) This invention relates in general to a resilient packaging spacer, and more particularly to an elongated, planar sheet of resilient cushioning material adapted to be used as a packaging spacer and having a serpentine or zig-zag configuration formed by a plurality of adjacent modular sections.

It has long been the practice in the packaging industry to protect fragile objects, such as ceramicware and glass ware, from the damaging effects of impact, shock and jarring unavoidably inherent in any shipping operation by providing some type of resilient spacing material either between the article itself and an enclosing carton or be tween inner containers carrying such objects and surrounding outer containers. In this latter manner the inner container is tightly suspended Within the outer container and is at the same time separated therefrom on all sides by the cushioning material, which serves to absorb any mechanical shocks or impacts imparted to the outer container and dampen their effects on the fragile contents of the inner container.

When utilizing such resilient spacing material as a between container cushion in the manner described above, or as applied to an article itself for packaging, such as furniture, several practical requirements must be considered. First of all, the material should be capable of being easily and quickly applied to the fiat surfaces, edges and corners of a container in such a manner that its manipulation is relatively foolproof. This is due to the fact that such spacers are almost universally applied by hand, and in any situation where manual operations are involved the cost of labor must be held to a minimum. Secondly, the spacers must be formed in such a manner that little or no material is Wasted or scrapped both during their fabrication and their subsequent application to containers. This requirement arises because in any packaging operation the over-all cost must be reduced to a commercially acceptable or competitive level, and the expense of the raw material as well as the finished spacer product is a significant factor in the cost breakdown. Thirdly, some simple method must be available of determining exactly how much spacer material is needed to achieve the degree of protection required in each specific packaging operation. This serves to further reduce labor costs by enabling unskilled packagers to readily and accurately determine how much material is required, and, in addition, both reduces waste by preventing the application of excessive spacer material to a container and eliminates undue shipping breakage due to insufficient packaging. A further requirement is that the spacers be universally adaptable to planar-surfaced articles or shipping containers of any given size or shape. By reason of such flexibility, the user need stock only one type of spacer rather than a number of specially formed spacers each designed for only a single application.

It is a primary object of this invention to provide a novel resilient packaging spacer adapted to be applied to the surfaces of an article or container to cushion and protect same during handling.

It is a further object of this invention to provide such a packaging spacer which meets the above-stated requirements to ease of application, waste minimization and necessary amount determination, and which is universally adaptable to any packaging operation with equal facility.

3,314,584 Patented Apr. 18, 1967 sheet of cushioning material and having a serpentine or.

zig-zag configuration.

It is a further object of this invention to provide such a spacer wherein the serpentine or zig-zag configuration is formed by a plurality of adjacent modular sections which may be in the shape of parallelograms.

It is a further object of this invention to provide such a spacer which is provided with longitudinal and transverse slits along which the material may be abruptly bent to facilitate its application to the edges and corners of a package or container.

It is a further object of this invention to provide such a spacer which has a layer of backing material secured to its unslit side, which layer is selectively coated with a pressure-sensitive adhesive to facilitate the application of the spacer material to the surfaces of a shipping container or carton.

The packaging spacer of this invention is advantageously formed of polystyrene foam, but could also be formed of any number of substitute materials, such as bonded animal hair, foam rubber, polyurethane foam, rubberized hair, etc.

These and further objects of this invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art from the following description of a preferred embodiment thereof, taken in conjunction with the drawings, in which:

FIGURE 1 shows a top view of a preferred embodi ment of a strip of a resilient packaging spacer according to the invention;

FIGURE 2 shows a perspective view of the other side of the same strip illustrating the backing material and adhesive application;

FIGURES 3a, 3b, 3c, and 3d show four successive steps involved in applying such a spacer strip to the edge and corner of a typical packaging container or carton; and

FIGURE 4 shows an inner container fully prepared for packaging with spacer strips in position above an outer container.

Referring now to the drawings, wherein the same reference numerals are used to designate like structural elements and features throughout, FIGURE 1 shows a strip 10 of a resilient packaging spacer according to the invention having a generally serpentine or zig-zag configuration. The strip 10 is provided with a centrally disposed longitudinal slit 12 which extends partially through the thickness of the material from one side, and is also provided with similarly cut transverse slits 14 perpendicular to the longitudinal slit. The transverse slits divide the over-all strip into a plurality of adjacent parallelogram shaped modules 16 and the longitudinal slit divides each of the parallelograms into two inversely congruent right triangular-shaped modules 18. The slits are provided to enable the strip to be abruptly bent during its application to an article or shipping container to thereby accommodate the edges and corners of same with a minimum of effort on the part of the packager, as will become more apparent hereafter. In addition, this type of construction renders the strip 10 universally adaptable to virtually all packaging operations, and it is not necessary for the user to stock different strips of varying sizes and shapes.

As indicated in FIGURE 1, the acute interior angles of each of the parallelogram-shaped modules 16 are 45, and the obtuse interior angles are These angular values, while not absolutely critical, are particularly advantageous in that they permit the spacer strip to be conveniently wrapped around the corner of an article to be packaged or an inner container in an orthogonal pattern,

3 as will be more fully developed hereafter in the description of FIGURE 3, without any waste of spacer material.

The packaging spacer of this invention is preferably formed of polystyrene foam, although any number of materials having similar characteristics may also be used, such as foam rubber, bonded animal hair, polyurethane foam, rubberized hair, etc. Polystyrene foam is particularly satisfactory as a packaging spacer because it resists compression sets, has excellent damping .or shock-absorbmg characteristics, absorbs very little moisture and its cushioning characteristics are substantially uniform and may be easily controlled during manufacture. The individual strips may be cut from planar sheets of polystyrene foam, and the zig-zag cuts as well as the slitting operations may even be performed simultaneously in a single die cutting step if desired. Alternately, the strips may be formed by a molding process, and the particular method of fabrication employed may take any convenient form not essential to the invention.

In the perspective view of FIGURE 2 the reverse or unslit side of the packing strip 10 is shown with a layer of backing material 20, such as paper, plastic film or textile fabric, laminated thereto. The exposed or outer surface of the backing material may be selectively coated with a pressure-sensitive adhesive such as shown at 22, which is protected until the time of use by a removable covering of facing paper 24. The adhesive 22 is shownapplied to the backing material in two parallel strips, although when an adhesive is desired any particular pattern may be employed with equal facility as long as each one of the triangular modules 18 receives some adhesive. The depth to which the longitudinal slit 12 and the transverse slits 14 extend through the thickness of the spacer It) is also clearly illustrated in FIGURE 2 by means of the heavy lines visible along the edges of the strip.

FIGURES 3a, 3b, 3c, and 3d illustrate four successive steps involved in applying a spacer strip 10, having pressure-sensitive adhesive applied thereto, to an edge and adjacent corner of a shipping container 26. In FIGURE 3a the facing paper 24 has been removed from a strip 10 and the adhesive side of the latter is ready to be placed on the upper surface 28 of a container 26 with one parallelogram-shaped module extending past the edge 30 and with the horizontal slit 12 coincident with the edge 32. In FIGURE 3b the strip has been so placed on the container with only a slight pressure necessary to firmly attach it by means of the adhesive 22. In addition, the strip has been broken along the longitudinal slit 12, wrapped around the edge 32, and similarly attached to the side surface 34 of the container. It will be appreciated that when breaking the strip 10 along any of the slit lines, the broken portions do not become completely severed but rather are flexibly maintained intact by the backing material 20. The slits merely enable the packager to abruptly bend the spacer strip to accommodate the edges and corners of container surfaces, and thus enhance the overall versatility of the strip. It will be understood, however, that the spacer strips 10 may be completely severed along any one of the slit lines by merely breaking the spacer material and tearing through the backing material. This may be done before or during a packaging operation to accommodate the strip length to the particular container being prepared for shipment. In FIGURE 3c the overhanging module has been broken along its transverse slit 14, wrapped around the container edge 3d, and adhesively secured to the end surface 36 of the container. The edge and corner wrapping operation has been completed in FIGURE 3d by making a final break along the remainder .of the longitudinal slit 12, wrapping the parallelogram-shaped module around the edge 38, and adhesively securing the remaining triangular-shaped module to the side surface 34 of the container. Although described with regard to a shipping container, the spacer strip is equally applicable for application directly to an article to be packaged, with or without the use of'a pressure-sensitive adhesive.

It may now be more fully appreciative that by means of the novel medularly slit zig-zag configuration of the invention, a packaging spacer may be quickly and easily applied to the mutually orthogonal edges and corners of a polyhedral article or a typical rectangularly-shaped shipping container with a minimum of time and effort and without wasting any of the spacer material. It will be noted that by reason of the earlier mentioned angular limitations chosen for the modules, a perfect corner wrap or fit is achieved with the edges of the two triangular modules protecting the corner of side surface 34 evenly meeting each other and nesting along line 40. This type of configuration also eliminates any guess work or uncertainty on the part of the packager when applying the spacer strips to an article or container, and thus serves to further reduce labor costs.

The perspective view of FIGURE 4 illustrates an inner container 42 that has been fully protected by the application of packaging spacer strips of the invention to all critical points. The container 42 which could very well be the article itself to be packaged is shown positioned above, and ready for insertion into, an outer container 44 having a configuration similar to that of the inner container but larger by the thickness of two spacer strips in the three principal dimensions so as to tightly accommodate the latter. The utility of the packaging spacer of this invention is by no means limited to a between container type of packaging technique, and is equally adapted for application to an article to be packaged within an outer enclosing carton.

The modular sectionalization of the spacer strips readily enables the unskilled packager to quickly and accurately determine the exact quantity of spacer material that will be required to adequately protect an article or the contents of any given container from the damaging effects of the normal shocks and jarrings to be expected in any shipping or handling operation. That is, each module has a known predetermined cushioning factor or capability that may be controlled during manufacture by properly regulating such variables as foam density and spacer thickness. The cushioning factor is normally computed from the results of standard laboratory measurements taken from drop tests, impact tests, vibration tests, etc. The cushioning factor for each module is generally specified in units of pounds, which merely means that a single module can be relied on to properly cushion the number of pounds of packaged dead weight given by its associated cushioning factor.

In this manner, if an article or container has a dead weight of 40 pounds and each triangular-shaped module has a cushioning factor of 2 pounds, the packager can easily determine that twenty such modules of resilient spacer material will be required on each side of such article or container to adequatley protect it during shipping. This example is illustrated in FIGURE 4 where it will be noted that twenty triangular-shaped modules have been adhesively secuerd to each of the visible sides of the inner container 42. It will also be appreciated that with the novel zig-zag configuration of the spacer strips of the invention a greater over-all area of container surface is covered and protected, albeit not solidly, than could be done using an equal amount of square or rectangular modules.

As a further aid to the packager, the spacer strips may, if desired, be provided with linear distance calibrations or rule markings, such as inches, feet, etc. Such markings may be printed on either or both sides of the strip along the central longitudinal axis, or they may be indicated by shallow cuts in the spacer material and the backing material.

While the invention has been described in connection with the accompanying drawings showing a specific embodiment thereof, it will be understood that it is not to be limited thereto as many minor changes and variations will be readily apparent to those skilled in this particular art, and the invention is to be accorded the broadest interpretation within the scope of the following claims.

What is claimed is:

1. A resilient spacer adapted to be selectively applied to the exposed surfaces of an article to be packaged to cushion same during handling, comprising, an elongated planar sheet of resilient cushioning material having a generally zig-zag configuration formed by a plurality of adjacent parallelogram-shaped modules and including a centrally disposed longitudinal slit and parallel transverse slits perpendicular to the longitudinal slit extending partially through the thickness of the material along which the material may be abruptly bent to facilitate its application to the edges and corners of a package.

2. A resilient spacer as defined in claim 1 wherein the acute interior angles of the parallelogram-shaped modules are approximately 45 and the obtuse interior angles of the modules are approximately 135.

3. A resilient spacer as defined in claim 1 wherein the longitudinal slit divides each of the parallelogram-shaped modules into two inversely congruent triangles and each transverse slit defines a common edge line between two of the parallelogram-shaped modules.

4. A resilient spacer as defined in claim 1 further comprising; a layer of backing material secured to the unslit planar surface of the cushioning material, a pressuresensitive adhesive applied to selected areas of the exposed surface of the backing material, and a removable facing sheet overlying the adhesive and adapted to protect same until the time of use.

5. A resilient spacer adapted to be selectively secured to the exposed surfaces of an article or package to cushion same during handling, comprising: an elongated sheet of resilient cushioning material having a zig-zag configuration formed by a plurality of adjacent parallelogramshaped modules in which the acute interior angles of the modules are approximately and the obtuse interior angles of the modules are approximately a centrally disposed longitudinal slit extending partially through the cushioning material and dividing each of the parallelogram-shaped modules into two inversely congruent triangles, a plurality of parallel transverse slits eX- tending partially through the cushioning material perpendicular to the longitudinal slit, each transverse slit defining a common edge line between two of the parallelogram-shaped modules, along which slits the material may be abnuptly bent to facilitate its application to the edges and corners of an article, and a layer of backing material secured to the unslit planar surface of the cushioning material.

6. A resilient spacer as defined in claim 5 wherein a pressure-sensitive adhesive is applied to selected areas of the exposed surface of the backing material, and a removable facing sheet overlies the adhesive and is adapted to protect same until the time of use.

7. A resilient spacer defined in claim 5 wherein the resilient cushioning material is polystyrene foam.

References Cited by the Examiner UNITED STATES PATENTS 5/1939 Masters et al. 229-14 7/1962 Brown et al. 229-14 

1. A RESILIENT SPACER ADAPTED TO BE SELECTIVELY APPLIED TO THE EXPOSED SURFACES OF AN ARTICLE TO BE PACKAGED TO CUSHION SAME DURING HANDLING, COMPRISING, AN ELONGATED PLANAR SHEET OF RESILIENT CUSHIONING MATERIAL HAVING A GENERALLY ZIG-ZAG CONFIGURATION FORMED BY A PLURALITY OF ADJACENT PARALLELOGRAM-SHAPED MODULES AND INCLUDING A CENTRALLY DISPOSED LONGITUDINAL SLIT AND PARALLEL TRANSVERSE SLITS PERPENDICULAR TO THE LONGITUDINAL SLIT EXTENDING PARTIALLY THROUGH THE THICKNESS OF THE MATERIAL ALONG WHICH THE MATERIAL MAY BE ABRUPTLY BENT TO FACILITATE ITS APPLICATION TO THE EDGES AND CORNERS OF A PACKAGE. 